I think it's a lot of how you interpret the phrase "role playing game". To be clear, none of what I'm about to say is to declare one or another side wrong or ri

I think it's a lot of how you interpret the phrase "role playing game". To be clear, none of what I'm about to say is to declare one or another side wrong or right, different people find different enjoyment in different ways, and that's okay as long as you're playing with those of a similar stripe. If you emphasize the "role playing" part, you become a character within a larger play, perhaps even the main character. So of course you don't want to die and roll a new character, just as it would be strange for a character to die in a play, but then the actor come back as a new character in the same play halfway through. The fighting and action become just flavor around playing the role, not necessarily the point in and of itself. If you emphasize the "game" part of this, the former sounds a bit strange. What's the point of a game where you can't lose? For some, what's the point of a game where you're not fighting much? Of course you die, this is just a paper and pencil version of Rogue (the game, not the class). And of course there's shades in the middle. 5E's strength is also its biggest weakness. You can do any of these things, however none of them are as good as a system that specializes in those. It's a swiss army knife, and a lot of people have gotten into it because of its popularity and versatility. Which ends up having a feedback effect: people play 5E because other people play 5E. And the people who want to learn a new rules system are exceedingly rare in my experience outside of the die hards.